Responses to the Reviewer #2’s comments:
L14-16 The background should be rewritten more logically with following content, such as: Soil and nutrient loss play a vital role in eutrophication of water bodies.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We rewrote the background to make the context more logical (Page 1, Line 14).
L 46: The authors list that the Ferrreira 2018 study indicates runoff is the main route for nutrient transport. This statement is too general. Nitrogen can be lost in several pathways (including leaching) and many others are not mainly lost via runoff.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised this sentence to make it clear (Page 3, Line 46).
L54-57: These descriptions are very broad. They may be found for particular studies in particular regions, but stating 70% of rainfall is lost as runoff needs to be contextualized because this is not a static fact, nor generalized dynamic across regions.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We restricted the area of this sentence to make the expression more accurate (Page 3, Line 58).
L55: which hydrological changes? ”Hydrological changes are generally caused by altered rainfall patterns and have a significant impact on soil nutrient loss”. This is too broad and leaves out many things.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised this sentence in the last version of manuscript (Page 3, Line 58).
L65-66 There should add some references to support this argument.
Response: Thank you for your comments. This sentence is integral to the following sentence, so there is the same reference, we rewrote the sentence (Page 4, Line 78-79).
L93 “effect of each factor on slope runoff and erosion” should be more accurately expressed as “effect of rainfall and environmental factors on runoff and soil nutrient loss”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised “various factors” to “rainfall and environmental factors” in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 6, Line 112).
L99-100 Soil types should use an international classification system (e.g. USDA soil taxonomy or FAO system) to be understandable to an international audience. I’m not sure what the listed soil types.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We have described the soil according to USDA soil Taxonomy (Page 6, Line 121).
L101 The sign should be “×”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised the sign to “×” (Page 6, Line 122).
L101 According to the description that the plot includes different areas and slops, why these two factors were not included in the analysis.
Response: Thank you for your comments. The area of plots influences the runoff and soil loss, but the scale span is not very large. Under the influence of rainfall and management, the impact of the area was masked. The runoff and soil loss in this study refers to the runoff depth (mm) and soil loss per unit area (t km-2), not to the total runoff and soil loss after the rainfall. Therefore, the effect of area on runoff and sediment was eliminated.
L101 and L121 Repeated introduction of vegetation coverage, it is suggested to delete a place.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We deleted a duplicate part in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 7, Line 153).
L109 “Beijing plots” should be replaced by “experimental sites”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised “Beijing plots” to “experimental sites” (Page 7, Line 137).
L112 Delete “classified as”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised “classified as” to “was taken as” in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 7, Line 143).
L114 why not choose the average rainfall intensity instead of the max rain intensity of 30 min.
Response: Thank you for your comments. Because the average rainfall intensity was calculated by the duration and intensity of rainfall, Imax30 was selected as the indicator of rainfall intensity in order to avoid collinearity of the data.
L111-115 The indices should be added in units.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We added the unites of indices (Page 7, Line 141-143).
L129-131 It would be better to change the sentence to “Given the complex relationship between hydrological and environmental factors and possible influence of plant coverage on runoff, soil loss, and nutrient loss, we used SEM to test the correlation”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We rewritten this sentence according to your request (Page 8, Line 167-169).
L133 “an a”? Please modify.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We deleted “a” in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 8, Line 173).
L136 Delete sign “,”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We deleted sign “,” in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 8, Line 176).
L191 “depth?” It would be better to write the full name here, “rainfall depth”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We added “rainfall” in the sentence (Page 11, Line 237).
L200-201 This is just an introduction to figure 6, but what do the authors get from figure 6? The authors did not specify. In my opinion, in addition to the linear equation, the correlation between soil nutrient loss and runoff was higher than that of soil loss.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We added the result description for figure 6 (Page 12, Line 24-250).
L256 “In …events, THE was no …” Please check it.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised “the” to “there” in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 13, Line 282).
L253 There should be data support here, please calculate the corresponding skewness value, not the conclusion you see directly.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We added the skewness value in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 13, Line 280).
L257-258 “short high intensity and long low-intensity” should be changed to “short duration of high intensity rainfall and long duration of low intensity rainfall”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We modified this sentence according to your requirements (Page 13, Line 284).
L290 I think this conclusion should come from table 3. It needs to be marked out.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We added “Table 3” in this sentence (Page 17, Line 362).
L303 I recommend that “rain” should be written as “rainfall”, modified elsewhere.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We revised “rain” to “rainfall” in the latest version of the manuscript (Page 17, Line 374).
Figure 2: the slope factor should be added to the environment variable in the empirical model in figure 1, although the factor was eliminated in subsequent analysis.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We added slope factor in figure 2.
Figure 6: “Ln(y)” should be changed to “Ln(N), Ln(P), Ln (COD)”, “Ln(x)” should be changed to “Ln (RO), Ln (SL)”.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We changed “Ln(y)” to “Ln(N), Ln(P), Ln (COD)”, and changed “Ln(x)” to “Ln (RO), Ln (SL)” in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Notes lack the description of RO and SL.
Response: Thank you for your comments. We added the description of RO and SL in Figure 6.
Figure 8: this figure is problematic. The values are not comparable and appropriate. The sum of the proportions is greater than 1?
Response: Thank you for your comments. We modified the Figure 8 so that the horizontal axis is on a uniform scale (Figure 8).